The mind & body must be subjected to extreme stimulus, by means of drugs & music.

Jack Kerouac influenced me quite a bit as a writer... in the Arab sense that the enemy of my enemy was my friend.

My first feeling was a wild desire to drive a stake in the sand and claim the place for myself. The beach was white as salt, and cut off from the world by a ring of steep hills that faced the sea. We were on the edge of a large bay and the water was that clear, turquoise color that you get with a white sand bottom. I had never seen such a place. I wanted to take off all my clothes and never wear them again.

You'd be surprised at the things people will do in order to get their names or pictures in the paper.

Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.

...the crazy never die.

Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.